


what a treacherous thing (to believe)

by gangtansonyeondan



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Analysis, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Nico Robin deserves the world and then Some, Other, Past Suicidal Thoughts, Poneglyphs (One Piece), Suicidal Thoughts, but ill put it in the tags in case, i love robin, i love the strawhats and i love robin, nico robin feels, not suicide just suicidal thoughts, robin used to be / have suicidal thoughts and we need to talk more about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26047723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gangtansonyeondan/pseuds/gangtansonyeondan
Summary: Robin has known death ever since she was a scared and lively eight year old girl, and it has been following her for twenty years now.—A character analysis about Nico Robin and the years she spent lonely and running.
Relationships: Jaguar D. Saul & Nico Robin, Monkey D. Luffy & Nico Robin, Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates & Nico Robin, Nico Olvia & Nico Robin
Kudos: 24





	what a treacherous thing (to believe)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from paper towns, the whole quote is "what a treacherous thing to believe, that a person is more than a person". the meaning i tried to give it in the title is probably not what the quote was going for, but i feel like it fits robin really well.
> 
> SO. this fic is probably a bit of a trainwreck, but i'll save the long notes to the end. :D
> 
> english isn't my first language, so i apologize for any errors in advance!!
> 
> WARNINGS:   
> mentions of suicidal thoughs the first half of the fic especially, and that part in the alabasta arc when robin tries to stay behind in the chamber of the graves of the kings, which probably counts as attempted suicide? i think that's it. stay safe!!!
> 
> lo and behold, on with the fic.

Robin is well familiar with death. 

She’s 28 and accustomed to it by now, even if she still remembers a time when it used to shake her down to her very core, when it left her frozen with fear, a lonely child and a jaded woman at the same time. 

Robin misses that feeling, every so often, that sign of humanity that has long since left her, but she’s grateful for the numbness, as well, because there’s not a day that goes by where Robin doesn’t experience death.

Never her own, of course —thankfully, regretfully—, but that’s worst, in some ways. 

Robin has known death ever since she was a scared and lively eight year old girl, and it has been following her for twenty years now. 

And it’s— it is a welcome and dreaded thing, death, because she knows death better than she knows herself, most days, knows how it works, and how it takes and takes and doesn’t give back, but there’s always something buried deep inside her that cries out with regret every time a life withers and disappears. 

She craves for it, too, sometimes, when the loss rests too heavily on her shoulders and her failures sit too loud on her mind; but she thinks back to a tearful smile and a dying laugh and a falling body, and—  _ Live, Robin! _ , so she does.

Robin lives, and searches, and tries to learn; and Robin cries and falls too short and she feels the deep set cold claws of desperation tearing at her chest from the inside, and she tries to laugh when she suffers, but there are too many stakes against her, and the scarce warm worried glances she receives all turn into greedy sharp regards, and every time she struggles to remember Saul’s parting words, the hopeful little girl she used to be and the withstanding young woman she has grown to live as merge into the dead girl walking she had once believed herself to be.

_ The sea is vast,  _ Saul had told her.  _ Someday, surely, you’ll find nakama who will protect you! _ But she’s been waiting for years, and that ‘someday’ seems farther away everyday that passes without any new hopes. 

Sure, she meets people, women and men, and she shares nights with some of them, shares the occasional short trip; but the death that accompanies her always follows, willing or not. It’s tiring, living a life all alone, no people to laugh and love and share things with. Robin is  _ so  _ tired. 

Tired of going on, tired of searching for something that she fears she may never find, and most of all she’s desperate for someone, for something, for anything, really. 

That’s probably why, when a Warlord of the Sea of all things offers her a chance and shares a plan to end a nation —to end the  _ world—, _ she doesn’t think much before saying yes. 

Working with Baroque Works is one of the easiest and hardest things Robin has done in  _ years. _ Being part of such a big organization, and as the vice-president no less, means she can relax and unwind a litte. Not completely—  _ never _ completely, she’s learnt the hard way, that trust is something rarely earned and hardly given, and she relies on Crocodile as far as she can throw him; which is barely a tiny amount; but he  _ needs _ her to achieve that of what he dreams of, so she can be sure that if anyone is going to betray her, it’s the Warlord and only him.

On the other hand, she doesn’t for a second intend to give Pluton to him, if that’s what they find. Robin has measured the lives and the country against her dream, and they are worth as much as one Berri, in comparison. Still, a life is a life and all life is precious, and the damage the Ancient Weapons can do, Robin would never entrust to a man as such as Crocodile. 

(Maybe it’s got something to do with Ohara, too, with how the existence of said Weapons had been the excuse and the reason of the death of everything she had known and loved and hated. Maybe it’s their will she has inherited, to use this knowledge she has to learn and to teach and never to damage; either way, she doesn’t intend to share  _ that _ kind of knowledge with anyone. She can’t trust anyone enough— can’t trust anyone at all with the threat that had destroyed everything she had once held dear and close to her heart.)

As thin as it may be, she still holds the hope that what they find is the Rio Poneglyph, and as it often happens with hope, she finds herself crestfallen, bleeding and dying, with the sole company of the ongoing battle between Crocodile and Monkey D. Luffy (and what a curious little rookie he is), and the King of Alabasta, in the resting place of those who had ruled before him. 

(It had been a difficult thing, schooling her face to indifference as she recited the well-learnt history of Alabasta, the Kingdom of desert. She had been desolate and hopeless, the meaning of the inscribed Poneglyph hitting her with the force of twenty years worth of searching turned failure.)

It’s, in all honesty, not a bad place to die. 

Robin has tried. She has fought with teeth and nails for all she’s worth, as little as that amounts to, and she has survived situations by the width of a hair, but this time… this time it’s more than she can stomach. This is it. Robin has tried and she has come out empty-handed, and she does not have it in her to keep straining just to live one more day, all for the useless empty faith that she will end up victorious. 

And then Monkey D. Luffy happens. 

_ (“Stop! I have no purpose left in life...! Leave me here!” “Why should I listen to you?”) _

She’s— Robin has never been more bewildered in her entire life. She is vaguely aware of the peculiarities of this pirate (her first honest laugh in years, she remembers, the kid drinking a entire barrel of water, giving himself the name of ‘Water Luffy’, and the little note-to-himself of “I think you’re not supposed to drink this much water” at the end… she had never been as amused and as flabbergasted), but he’s picked her up and carried her to safety, and when she sneaks into his ship and asks of him to make her  _ nakama, _ he says “Sure!” and “Don’t worry, she’s not a bad person!”, and despite herself, Robin aches for this thing she has found to be permanent. 

(It’s not going to last much, she knows, it never does; their kindness and their acceptance, but, well, what’s one more unattainable dream?)

Monkey D. Luffy and his crew are everything she’s been looking for ever since she left the shores of Ohara and ventured into an unknown and unkind world. 

They’re warm and caring, and every second she spends by their side is a whole other reason Robin has for longing to stay here, in the merry little boat, with this ragtag little family they’ve built for themselves. 

She feels her dream come back, too, with an island in the sky and a golden bell, a familiar language carved in gold, and on the side, the Pirate King’s words engraved deep, too. 

Robin is— has been— used to be willing to die for a lot of things. 

To die for a little knowledge, to die for the remnants of a family that once was.

Die for a warm meal, die for a safe place to sleep at night.

To die for hope, for a stray dog in the streets.

Die for a stranger, for a friend that could be.

To die for a friend, to die for a dream.

But she had never once considered she could  _ live _ for something, for someone, before. 

_(Robin!,_ and _Sogeking, burn down that flag._ _Say you wanna live_ , and _Let’s all go back together!)_

Now she knows she would— live for a dream, for a warm meal in the Sunny; for a conversation, for her friends, her  _ nakama. _

Robin would live for Monkey D. Luffy,  _ with  _ him; and she truly can’t wait to see where this new path will take her.

_ (I’ve found nakama who would believe someone like me. Who believe in  _ **_me_ ** _! The life I once gave up on… The heart I lost... The dreams I thought were dead… They bring these back to me, every time.) _

As long as she’s with them, it’s sure to take her to wonderful places.

**Author's Note:**

> time for the long ass notes!!!!!!
> 
> first of all, super thanks for reading !!!!!! i hope you enjoyed the fic at least a little bit. if you decide to kudos/comment/bookmark then you have all of the love i'm capable of :))) thank !!!!! you!!!!!! sorry if i answer late to the comments (if there are any lmao) i'm not good at responsabilities.
> 
> apparently, the only time my imagination ever works is at 3am, bc this was written quickly and badly at that same hour, and i was kinda sleep deprived so this might not have been very good. i just spent like 3 hours going over and trying to come up with things to connect, bc i literally went from saul's quote to "robin is willing to die for lots of things", and the only thing in between was [croc + alabasta. lufffy and the crew were ...] so i'm not sure of how it came out, but i'm still a bit satisfied :D
> 
> again, i hope you liked it, thank you thank you thank you for reading, and if you leave kudos or anything. like ily, my friends.
> 
> sorry if it was absoulte garbage lmao i'm tired.
> 
> bye!!!


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